M Y J O U R N E Y T H A T B R O U G H T M E H O M E .
I have mentioned in previous posts that I have a weakness for travel. It’s in my blood.
I traveled a bit as a little girl, or if I wasn’t traveling someone in my family was. It was just very normal for me. A few weeks before my sweet sixteenth my parents moved our family to California for what was meant to be nine months. A few years later we came home (not so much by choice). I then spent the next few years traveling back and forth to America with some trips to England and Italy. On one of my trips I had been in Quebec, Canada studying French (as you do) and had stopped in at Mammoth Lakes on my way back to Redding, California.
I remember sitting in the middle of a lake, surrounded by snow and the beautiful mountains of Mammoth and my friend was asking me what I would do next in life. I really had no idea, I just wanted to keep traveling. She knew I had a love for health and there in that boat in the middle of the lake made a suggestion that has impacted where I am in my life now. She said, “You love health, why don’t you go to school and actually get a qualification out of it?”, I’ll be honest, this is not what I was wanting to hear, but nonetheless it resonated with me and it’s quiet little voice started getting louder and louder in my head.
I stopped in at Redding on the way home and met some people from California and Norway who were taking a road trip to The Grand Canyon to hike it, so I decided to go. In this time I decided that I definitely needed to go to Germany, it wasn’t time to go home yet, that could wait right?
In the span of a week I had three people (random but significant people) speak to me about going home. I fobbed of the first one, ignored the second one but by the third they had all been in such random situations that I couldn’t ignore it anymore.
I had been praying for a few weeks and asking God where I should travel to next. It was plain and simple, I couldn’t ignore it anymore,
H E W A S A S K I N G M E T O T R A V E L H O M E !
It had been a rough couple of years and home was just a reminder of that. It would be easier to keep going on adventures and not having to face my actual life.
I went on a journey for the next couple of years where God taught me how to love my land and love this place I call home. Don’t get me wrong, I still LOVE travel but I have found my peace here. I enrolled in College and years later from that moment on that lake I have my Bachelor in Health Science and I am a qualified Naturopath. We get to choose what we do or don’t do in this life and I am honored to have been born an Australian and live in such a blessed and beautiful land.
I was chatting with a lady recently from Canada and she was talking about Melbourne, where I live and saying how we really have it all. We have the coast and the beaches, we have the wineries and vineyards, we have the forests and the mountains, we have the city and all its beauty and I realized how true this is. Sometimes you just need someone with outside eyes to remind you of where you are and how rich it is.
A wise friend said to me once, “I used to long to travel to the far lands and explore, but I am finding more and more I just love and value home. I like being here, I don’t need to go looking for that anymore.” There is a lot to be said of that, not always longing for somewhere or something that we don’t have but being thankful for what is right in front of us and valuing that well.I am thankful that I call this place home. I am thankful to be near my family and friends. I am thankful for peace in knowing I am just where I am meant to be. And I am thankful for my love of distant lands.
P R E V I O U S P O S T S O N T R A V E L
Enjoy!
Alyce Kate
WHOLENESS.WONDER.WELLBEING 